After reviewing the Barielle Me Couture collection (you can find the review HERE), I wanted to do some nail art. The formula was so perfect, I suspected they would work well for the #31DC2014 water marbling prompt. I was right!
I have tried water marbling several times and I have to say that these were the best polishes I have used. They spread wonderfully and don't dry to fast. Seriously perfect!
I started with a white base and water marbled with Barielle Moda Bleu, Vintage Gown and Soho at Night.
I am still perfecting this technique and, as always, can see all my flaws, but I ended up really happy with it.
This whole collection will be going into my "use to water marble" list. I am sure that they will be ones that help the non spreading polish work. Yeah, I LOVE this collection!
Thanks for looking and commenting!
Too. Many. Challenges. Must. Combine! Wonder nail powers activate! Form of water marble! Color of pastel! LOL, I must be tired because that cracked me up! If you are a child of the late 70's, you may understand that reference.
You may have deduced the themes for this. If you haven't...you aren't paying attention! Llama Nails prompt is water marble and The Never Ending Pile is pastel. How could I not combine these two?
I am getting more proficient at water marbles, but I still feel like I have a ways to go at getting the really purdy designs. Practice makes perfect, right? Here are the colors I used:
- LVX Legendaire - Untried pastel purple
- LVX Cliquot - Pastel pink
- Orly Cochella Dweller - Pastel Green
- Sinful Colors Just You Wait - Untried shimmery sheer purple/pink/gold shifter
See what I did? Two untrieds, two...uh, tried...two challenges. Aren't I brilliant? Well, maybe not (tee hee). Thought I would tell you how well these did for water marbling.
- Cliquot was the best with good spread and good coverage (how well it showed up in the marbling)
- Legendaire spread the least, but still did a good job.
- Just You Wait was a GREAT spreader, but ended up hardly showing up at all.
- Cochella Dweller spread REALLY well. Almost too well. It aided in spreading the other colors, but had it's downfall. See how it is "balding" a bit in the rings? When I was making the designs it had a tendency to break up, which meant you couldn't play with the design much without ending up with a mess. I would definitely use this in a water marble again, just use two or three drops for each ring for more coverage. Make sense?
When I showed this to Bria she was all like, "Ooooo, Easter eggs!" and I was all like, "Must get egg pic!" (tee hee)
Mood rock says I love this. What do you think? Take a look at the lots-o-links. And comment if you want to. Tell me if I sound as giddy as I feel! I think I will go make some bacon popcorn now.
Whew! I think I am finally over this virus! I'm not sleeping 12 hours a day anymore, so I have time to get the last few manis for the Nail-Art-A-Go-Go up on the blog. Although a couple of these have been done for more than a month, I just didn't have the energy to post them. Enjoy the multiple posts this weekend!
Day 25 is water color. I decided to try my hand at water marbling again. Not extremely successful, but definitely and improvement.
The main mistake I made with this is not using a pure white for the base. Instead I used Barry M Lychee. Don't know why, I just did. You can see it most on the edge of my thumb.
There on my middle finger is a smudge of Hands Off My Kielbasa used in the marble. Don't know how it got there! I didn't even notice it until I edited the pics. Maybe from the edge of the glass?
Polish used in this marble:
- Barry M Lychee for base
- Revlon Captivate (copper)
- China Glaze Fade Into Hue (blue)
- OPI Hands Off My Kielbasa (pink)
I skipped day 26, but day 27 will be up very soon.
I have been waiting for this day since I first even thought of hosting the Falling Through the Rainbow challenge. The day of blue. Why? I have been wanting to do an under the sea mani for a long time, just needed the incentive. Here is what I came up with.
This started with a gorgeous water marble using Orly Pretty Ugly, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Blue-Away and Revlon Aquamarine. I was so excited to get on with the rest of it, however, that I forgot to take a picture of it! Bad Tina! Bad!
Next I created some stamping decals using DRK-C. The outlined fish above shows how you paint on one side, and when you flip it over, it looks like the one right next to it. These fish are so tiny, you can see that I did not get every bit filled. I think I need some magnifying glasses :) By the way, if you click on the plate photo above, you can see it much larger.
I added some Zoya Godiva to the tips for sand.
I tried to add some depth by doing different layers with top coat. For example, on my thumb above, I painted on some seaweed, and added the clown fish with a coat of topcoat. Then I pained some more seaweed and added the blue fish with more top coat and finally added the red fish with another layer of top coat. Yes, that is a lot of top coat!
I changed it up on each nail. You can see the seaweed going over one of the fish there on my middle finger. I don't think that I totally achieved what I was going for, but I don't really care, I loved these anyways. No fail today!
What do you think? Can you see the depth? Would you use this much top coat just to get a little depth? Think it would work better with Poshe? Don't forget to check out the other blues!
The prompt for today's Crumpet Nail Tarts 33DC is color you own the most of. If you pursued through my blog, you might think it was blue...or purple...or brown. Probably something dark, right? Nope, wrong. The color I own the most of is....wait for it....PINK. Yes, I couldn't believe it myself, but it is pink. How can this be? I think between raspberry, peach and pink, there are more variations of the color pink out there than any other color out there. Plus pinks go so well with my skin tone. It's surprising that I don't wear them more, but I just love my dark vampy colors.
So I decided to go with a water marble to showcase several pinks. The problem is that I wrote down what I used....somewhere....and now I can't find it. I remember Zoya Willow and Nina Spun Sugar. I know there were two others, but I can't remember what they were. Sorry!
I had a bit of trouble with this one, as you can see from my battered pinkie.
I like my thumb the best, so here are some close ups.
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So what do you think? Surprised that pink is the color I have the most? Think I should wear them more? As always, thanks for looking!
Just a quick little post to show you the water marble I did for Lacquer Dreams Halloween challenge. Today's prompt is "Trick or Treat". Last year in October I made my first attempt at water marbling with candy corn colors. It turned out a muddled mess! Since I have improved my water marble skills, I thought I would try again and give you some of my "secrets". Oh, and it is a return of Bria's nails to the blog! When not in school she has less interest in having her nails done.
The colors I used for this are as follows:
- Orange - Sinful Colors Cloud 9
- Yellow - Sinful Colors Lets Meet
- White - Snow White
This was "finished" at 11:00 pm on a school night, which means we weren't too picky about clean up.
This is after a full weeks wear. Hardly any tip wear and only one chip near the cuticle on one nail. Here you can see the shimmer from both the Sinful Colors. Bria loved these and I was so glad that they were successful!
If you have ever Googled "water marble nail art" you will have found lots of tips for success so I am not going to list them all here. In experimenting, I found some additional ones that I hadn't seen before, so I figured I would share them for those who may still be having difficulty with water marbling (WM from here on out).
- A small container - When I first tried WM, I was using a glass that had a smaller mouth than a typical glass. I had trouble with the polish drying to quickly and therefore not spreading. I started using a "large" shot glass. This means that the polish doesn't spread too thin and dry to fast. It also means that you can only dip two fingers at a time, but I think it is worth not having to try again and again.
- With more than three colors, I found that it was better to use fewer "circles" in the bullseye. Too many rings means more chance that the colors get "muddled" together.
- I found I was never successful unless I anchored the polish to the side of the glass. If you don't know what I mean, search YouTube. Sometimes I only anchor the outer ring for more design potential.
- I found that you cannot use the same water too many times, although you can use the same glass. Using room temp water helps, unless it is cold in the house, like it has been the last few days. Too early to turn on the heat, at least according to the hubby. For these I used slightly warm tap water.
- I found I got the most detailed patterns using a needle to drag instead of an orange stick or a dotting tool. I suppose that a toothpick might work well too, but I didn't try it.
- This last tip is a personal preference. My cuticles tend to run dry and tape does a number on them, so I don't like taping around my fingers like many suggest. I also HATE WM cleanup. Instead I use a small detail brush to carefully apply Vaseline around my cuticles and then all over the back and front of my fingers, being careful to not get any on the nail itself. After you dip you can clean up with a clean cotton swab (no remover needed) and the polish comes off easily. This tends to be a bit messy though as you have globs of wet polish on the swab. An alternative is to let the polish dry on the skin. Usually the polish will peel right off, but sometimes you will need to use a little remover to get the stubborn areas.
So, those are my tips. I hope they will help you be successful too! Let me know if they have helped you at all!
Tina
I am a day late for the CNT 33DC, but I think it is worth it. The prompt was/is chevrons. Since discovering some tips for water marbling I have been dipping my fingers again and again (tee hee). I will be sharing what I discovered worked for me very soon.
This started with one coat of my go to black, Finger Paints Black Expressionism.
Next I did a water marble with China Glaze Strap On Your Moonboots (blue holo), China Glaze When Stars collide (purple holo) and Maybelline Bold Gold (uh, if you can't figure out which color that is, you need help). I learned how to do the chevron design by watching THIS VIDEO by SimpleLittlePleasures. Yes, those are water bubbles on my index and middle finger. I am still perfecting the art.
I now wish I had layered this over white, I think the colors would have popped more, but I kinda like how subtle this turned out, especially for wearing to work. This is my thumb, which I thought turned out the best.
As always, thanks for looking and commenting!
Tina
This is the third installation of the Tri-Polish Challenge....sort of the tri Tri-Polish (tee hee). I tried a technique I have been unsuccessful at before, but apparently practice makes perfect...or at least satisfactory.
Yep, it is water marbling! Still perfecting the technique, but not bad for only my second time.
Somehow my pink looks orange and my purple looks a bit pink. I got a lot of complements on this, so I can't wait to try it again with different colors.
Here's my favorite one, of course it is on my right hand. This is my right thumb. Now on to all the other Tri girls
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